By Mariah AndrewsGovernor Terry Branstad himself has said, "I take some of the blame for Iowa’s slide in the rankings – for not realizing sooner that sticking with the status quo would eventually put Iowa at a disadvantage."

Unfortunately, as Education Iowa’s 2011 Annual Condition of Education Report indicates, our performance has continued to slip or stay stagnate in multiple areas.

Here are the eight performance benchmark reasons to UNIfy for Education:

Only 39.4 percent of the graduating class of 2011 reported taking a high-level mathematics course.

While two-thirds (65.7 percent) of the class of 2011 reported taking chemistry, only 26.5 percent took physics.

The fourth-grade ITBS results in reading and mathematics proficiency percentages from 2004-06 to 2009-11 biennium are relatively flat.

The eighth-grade ITBS proficiency results in mathematics and reading is slightly up between the 2004-06 and 2009-11 biennium.

The eleventh-grade ITED proficiency percentage results are mixed, with reading trends slightly up and mathematics results slightly down between the 2004-06 and 2009-11 biennium.

Iowa fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP results in mathematics and reading are also similar from the prior years, with no significant gains in either content area or grade level.

The four-year cohort graduation rate for the class of 2010 was abysmally low -- just 88.8 percent.

Since 2001, the percentage of Iowa students taking the ACT has decreased from 67 percent (2001) to 61 percent (2011). During this same period, the national percentage of students taking the ACT has increased from 38 percent (2001) to 49 percent (2011).